How should I take my first step with you?

I think for patients who either have been diagnosed with a fertility problem, or still exploring a fertility clinic even for reassurance, I would suggest the important thing is to contact the fertility clinic.

At London IVF and Genetics Centre, we encourage patients to come and talk to us or call us. For example, for a free 15-minute consultation that would give you an initial idea of whether we are the right clinic for you, but also it will help you in formalising or facing some of the real fears that you might be facing.

I think that should be your first step should be either to book a telephone consultation, an in-person consultation, or you can just book a free 15 minute consultation to come and discuss with us what the cause of infertility is, what your biggest fear is and what is it that you want us to help you with and the approach you prefer.

Whether you’re looking for the best possible success rate or you’re looking for a wholesome support of the care, we can help you in both ways by delivering the success rate, as well as giving you a high level of patient experience.

Can you explain the patient’s fertility journey?

The patients fertility journey, in my opinion, is anything but straightforward. Really the challenges start coming up from the very beginning when couples try to decipher that here we might have a problem.

The initial tendencies are to do a lot of self learning and a lot of internet research to understand what may be going on. It takes a lot of courage for them to then build up and go to the GP, doctor, or sometimes even a fertility specialist to understand whether they need help.

By the time the patients are booking the appointment for their fertility consultation, I think they have taken the most difficult first step towards this journey.

As part of that, London IVF and Genetics Centre we are very particular and sensitive to the challenge that is involved at that very first step. Therefore, we have specifics on that what to expect at the first appointment.

When they come in for their consultation, that is another part in their journey and here they are trying to assimilate lots of information like whether they need the treatment, who might be to blame, what treatment they have to go to, what the effects would be short term or long term, and whether it will work for them or if they might have to go through this journey again. That is a lot of information that they have to take on board, then accept that there is a problem and they have to face up to it.

While they have prepared for it, it leads them to another chapter of the journey where they have accepted the fact that they have to go through a treatment and what the treatment involves.

Because this is not a straightforward treatment, the treatment goes on anywhere from four to up to eight weeks, and in this brief period they are doing plenty of injections that some of the side effects of the injections and self has mood swings. While the female partner is enduring the injections, it’s equally stressful for the male partner to ensure that she’s comfortable and approaching the treatment in a healthy way.

That’s another journey the patients go through, learning how to do the injections, accepting the fact of self injecting, going through surgical procedure, and going through a procedure that they expected should have happened naturally.

Once they’ve been through the treatment, during the next part of the treatment they also have to assimilate lots of information that has been given to them. They are making decisions on a daily basis, for example, are the embryos developing well, are we going to put one embryo back or two embryos back, and is this the right thing to do? They have to make these decisions as choices based on the facts, but the outcome is not really known whether it’s the right decision or wrong.

Then this leads to the next journey, which is dealing with the outcome. In some patients, where the treatment has been unsuccessful, it certainly is frustrating and devastating end to the treatment. In some patients it can become even more challenging when we might say that we don’t know why it hasn’t worked and it is not uncommon for us to suggest so.

In my experience I have also seen where patients have had treatment they have been very apprehensive about the pregnancy and dealing with an ongoing successful pregnancy for some patients has been just as challenging. However, a positive outcome is much better to deal with compared to dealing with an unsuccessful outcome.

I’m very sensitive and aware that a fertility patient who for their first time is trying to approach a fertility clinic and is on the beginning of a journey, that it is going to be challenging and will involve a lot of emotional aspects, which are different in nature at each step of the journey.

Obviously after going through all this treatment, what keeps patients applying themselves through the journey is that that the end outcome is absolutely priceless. A majority of the patients, in my experience who were about to end their journey or they were doing the last treatment and having to see them back come and see me with their babies has been the utmost job satisfaction I could ever get.

How does London IVF and Genetics Centre address common fertility concerns?

Patients have commonly expressed a range of concerns that may affect them when going through the treatment, whether they are

• Starting the fertility or IVF treatment
• Already in the midst of the journey
• They’re coming towards the end of the treatment.

A majority of these concerns are around of the issues such as the consistency and clarity of the information that has been shared with them. Whether it is related to the clinical aspects, newer interventions, the care that they get when going through treatment, or treatment costs. I think these are a range of the issues that they experience.

Some of them may also feel that the lack of continuity of care leads to numerous communication gaps and conflicting information. As a matter of fact it might be the same information being conveyed differently by different people at the clinic.

What I would say in my view is the primary challenge that the fertility industry is facing is the communication of information to the patient and being sensitive to the patient needs. The communication to me boils down to three main groups and one of them is the clinical information.

Therefore, it is important that we have more clarity on publishing the success rates, the time period these success rates are being published. What is the denominator we are using the for the success rate, whether it being clinical success rate or live birth rate?

We should discourage setting league tables which many clinics do, because they are not liked by comparison and given the amount of the information that the patients have to assimilate, they might not be able to make the best informed decision for themselves. Going on to this point itself, is that we have to be realistic in communicating and setting patient expectations. This again leads from the clinical aspects but also involves other aspects such as clarity of the costs. There is a huge fragmentation with regards to the cost that patients are being charged. Upfront, some patients may be aware of certain costs. Equally, when patients are comparing clinics, it might be the basic IVF package cost.

What they lack clarity in is what is being included and what has being excluded, and the extra cost that we have to bear. This lack of clarity of information might lead them to choose clinics which they initially thought maybe more cost effective options but not might be. That is where I feel expectation setting is helping patients make better-informed decisions.

This leads me to the third point, which is introducing more transparency both in clinical information and the treatment prices.

Coming on to the second point of the sensitivity of the patient needs, I think we are in an in an age where women do wish to manage or balance both their professional and personal priorities. I believe it is a responsibility of the clinics where they’re going for treatment, to help them do so by providing more choices, convenience, and flexibility so that they can they can continue with both.

Regarding London IVF and Genetic Centre, we have been established keeping these few things in mind. Here we provided continuity of care, so they see the same clinician or consultant all the way through the treatment right from the beginning of the journey through the journey until the end. Any communication addresses or patient concerns are addressed in real time, so there is no translation of information, so therefore it makes for a better patient experience.

By giving a range of appointments from early evening, weekend appointments, exclusive appointments, and even an option of out-of-hours monitoring appointments, we are helping our patients achieve that balance which is so widely needed these days.

These are some of the aspects that we take care of when we want to address some of the challenges that are burning out there for the fertility industry.

Why is continuity of care so important?

Continuity of care is a very key factor that I believe is important in patient care, not only for fertility treatments but any treatment in any area of medicine. Developing that rapport with your doctor and having the right doctor-patient relationship helps alleviate a lot of stress and anxiety that the patients go through.

Considering the patient’s fertility journey is anything but straightforward we firmly believe as part of a patient-centric approach to providing the continuity of care.

When we say continuity of care, we offer that the patient’s get seen by the same consultant right from the first appointment from the monitoring scans appointments to their egg collection procedure, embryo transfer and up to the follow-up consultations. Even out of hours, you should be able to speak to your consultant. That gives a huge degree of reassurance.

There has been a discussion on the impact of the stress and fertility, while there is no direct associations or links, we do believe that stress at some point may affect the outcome of the treatment.

Keeping on with our commitment to deliver high success rates, we think this is one of the factors that can help improve the success rates to a certain extent while being very realistic, that yes not every patient will be able to achieve a pregnancy with a treatment at London IVF and Genetics Centre.

Why do you provide early morning, evening and weekend fertility appointments?

At London IVF and Genetics Centre, we have established ourselves on the philosophy of a very patient centred approach. We appreciate that these days the most precious commodity that everyone has is probably their time. Therefore to help our patients balance their professional and personal priorities, some of which can be very time sensitive, we believe that our patients should have more choices so that they can pursue their personal priorities without having to compromise their professional ones.

Therefore this is the basic philosophy on which we provide these range of fertility appointments. This includes early evening fertility appointments or consultation up to half-past seven in the evening, or weekend fertility appointments. Even for some patients who would struggle to fit any of these appointments, they have an option of an exclusive fertility appointment which obviously comes at a premium cost. This will certainly also depend on the consultant’s availability.

Based on a commitment to providing the patient-centric approach, for those patients were going through the monitoring, we provide an out of hours monitoring facility. The basic sense of this is that patients can attend the monitoring scans and blood tests and still be at work at 9 am. They do not have to stress themselves of having to wait in the waiting room for a blood test and a scan and worry about a meeting they may be late to.

To help a woman balance her professional and personal priorities, we provide a range of flexibility and choices so that they can balance both at the same time.

Can you compare your success rate with the national average?

I think the success rate is one of the very important key determining points or the key point that plays on the mind of the patients. When looking at the success rates, they are expressed as two denominators and can be either as clinical pregnancy rates or as live birth rates.

My success rates for the last year, for patients less than 35, in the blastocyst stage transfer whether one or two have clinical pregnancy rates, have been around 75%.

Generally, the average clinical pregnancy rates would be around 50% or at most optimistically, would be around 60%. These are the patients who are less than 35, and they could have a range of clinical conditions. It does not restrict just to the very first treatment, but it also includes some patients who might be at the very last treatment.

At London IVF and Genetics Centre, we are very committed to delivering your very best chance of you getting pregnant. We are also realistic that we may not be able to achieve success for each and every patient that comes to us.

Can you explain your free telephone or Skype consultation?

London IVF and Genetics Centre offers free 15 minutes consultations. This can be in person, by telephone, or over Skype.

What is very important for us is that before any of the patients start their treatment is that they should be able to speak to us and have an initial idea that this probably is the right clinic where you want to be.

It is very important for us that when we take you on the journey, you should be able to trust us, meet your consultant, and have developed that rapport. The initial feeling is very important. That the real a sense of these free 15 minute consultations.

You can book these consultations by calling the clinic, or you can book the consultation by filling in a short form on our website. You can ask for a convenient time. These appointments are usually made available between 9 AM and 5 PM. This is how you can arrange for the free 15-minute consultation.

The consultation is a conversation around your background the burning question that is very important before you choose a clinic for the treatment so that we can address some of your important points. This is so that we can help you make an informed and a better decision when choosing a fertility clinic or when choosing London IVF and Genetics Centre for your treatment.